The Salvation
Dojo slunk away from the portals, yelping softly as he fell from a high precipice onto the marshy ground below. The moment he hit the muddy ground, tendrils of foliage, blackened with fire damage, began wrapping themselves around his body.
"Hey, leggo!" He shouted, wriggling free. It was dark and spooky in this strange realm and the last thing he needed was aggressive plant life.
Dojo continued his steady pace throughout the misty realm, not sure where he was going or what he was trying to do. He knew, he remembered that this was an important place; it was there that he had heard that mysterious voice after Chase Young had attempted drown him during the Showdown. If he kept on slithering along, he knew he would find something that would help him save the day.
"It's times like this that I really wish I'd gone into dentistry." Dojo said. He shivering as something oozed past him in the bog. "Dentists make a lot more money, and don't have to crawl around in mud all day!" And finally be able to do something about my wisdom teeth...
He distracted himself with silly thoughts until he was momentarily blinded by a flash of light that seemed to emanate out of nowhere. Dojo raised a clawed hand to shield his eyes, and through his spread fingers was able to see that the light was apparently coming from a lighthouse somewhere just up ahead.
"If that's really a lighthouse, then there must be people!" Dojo said. "Maybe I can stay with them, just for a little while before I keep going."
He hurried across the bog, hoping to reach the lighthouse before something else reached him. He was hungry and tired of crawling around in darkness and the closer he got to where he needed to be the better it would be for everyone.
Finally, he was within sight of the lighthouse. Before him stood the tower, at least two hundred feet tall with a huge beacon in the middle. It flashed alarmingly as he approached, and Dojo began to fear that he had stumbled into yet another trap.
'Come closer... my child...'
"Mom? Dad?" Dojo asked, glancing around wildly. He didn't have any relatives who lived in creepy bogs in the middle of a nightmare realm. Well, except for Uncle Basil, but no one ever talks about him. "Basil, what are you doing here?"
"We are not Basil...' The eerie voice said.
"Then... who... ?" Dojo began.
'We are the beginners of the race of dragons, the King and Queen of Fire and Air!
A Dragon king and queen? Dojo thought to himself. There were only two beings he knew of who called themselves that. They were famous (or perhaps infamous) in dragonlore as the most powerful of the dragons. A long time ago, they had reigned as kings before being cast down by ancient heroes into the underworld.
'We are TYPHON and ECHIDNA!' The voice spoke, and in that instant a bolt of lightning streaked across what passed for the sky, illuminating, for one brief instant, the terrifying visages of the ancient dragons. The two beasts were coiled around the tower, inextricably linked in a tight embrace. They stared down at Dojo with flashing purple eyes before throwing back their heads and letting out a thunderous roar that seemed to shake the entire realm.
"Eeeeek!" Dojo shrieked, flinching away.
'We have summoned you here, our son!' Echidna said. 'We require your assistance.'
"W-w-with what?" Dojo asked.
'Release us from this Arcana prison, so that we can lay waste to the human world.' Echidna said.
Lay waste to the world? But that's where I keep all my stuff! Oh, and my friends live there too. I can't let that happen! Dojo thought.
'Why do you hesitate?' Echidna demanded. 'All you must do is allow us to wear your skin. We will then smash our own portal into the human world to transform it into our own magnificent dragon paradise.'
"That's, you know, that's really nice and all, but I'm really attached to my skin, so, if you don't mind..." Dojo said. He tried to turn around and leave but found his body firmly rooted in place.
'You would deny your own true mother and father?' Echidna boomed. 'Our brood has gone to seed since we have been away, King Typhon!'
Typhon nodded his enormous black head.
'If you will refuse your duty, then we shall have to force you!' Echidna said.
Dojo gulped. What did they mean by 'force him'?
He got his answer a moment later.
Frozen in place, Dojo was helpless as the light from the lighthouse became flickering tendrils of shadow and lashed out at him. They wrapped themselves around his waste and throat, forming a thick cap over his head. As they did so, he could feel a strange feeling wafting off of the tendrils. It was a choking, pungent odor, that reminded Dojo of skeletons and graveyards and gloom. He tried to fight it off but it was overpowering. Already, he was beginning to hallucinate. The lighthouse ahead of him twisted and distorted as he flailed around. The mud seemed simultaneously as hard as a rock and as cold and slippery as raw eggs.
"Lemme GO! Lemme go! LemmegolemmegoLEMMEGO!" He shouted, or perhaps only thought. He could no longer tell.
Here we go again, he thought, almost giddy with light-headedness as the strength drained from his body. I try and try but it never seems to work out. I should have left it to the monks. No wonder I'm comedy relief...
'Your life is ebbing, defiant wyrm.' Echidna snarled.
Ha! I suppose it is! Dojo could hardly keep himself from laughing. He was lightheaded and woozy now, and even as he faded he couldn't find the strength to be upset about it. In fact, the only thing he could think of to do now was to close his eyes and fall asleep... it didn't really matter; in a moment, Kimiko or Omi would be by to bang the gong and wake them all up for breakfast...
Kimiko... Omi... Raimundo... Clay... Master Fung... Uncle Tiamat... all those people...
Dojo's eyes popped wide open. Nope, nope, can't do it! Can't let this happen! I have to win, not just for me, but for my friends and my home!
He howled with a fury and began coughing up small tufts of smoke. The shadows wrapped around him flinched ever so slightly. Encouraged, he kept on going. Puff! Puff! Puff! Echidna's tendrils began to crawl down his body. "Raaaaargh!" Dojo released a gout of flame that immolated his entire body, burning away the shadows.
'Prodigal serpent! Do not attempt to avert your destiny!' Echidna shrieked, but Dojo was not listening now.
This one's for Earth! Dojo thought, and released his own fireball that went crashing into the lighthouse.
In an instant, the tower burst into flames and crumbled into ash. Echidna and Typhon swirled up and up into the air, screaming in rage as they vanished in a flash of light.
'This one's for Earth'?" He murmured to himself. "I have got to get better writers."
A blaze was starting to spread from where the lighthouse once stood. Dojo watched it burn several of the creeping plants that had accosted him earlier before realizing that it was coming straight for him.
"Well, I've got to go!" Dojo said. And he turned and flew, soaring straight across the mud with a steely determination that he had never known was in him. The portal still hung ahead, a brilliant hole in empty space. For a moment, he feared it would close up in his face but miraculously, it didn't and he was to fly through and return to the land of living.
"The smell of Earth," Dojo mumbled as he crashed into what felt like soft grass and closed his heavy eyes. "The smell of home. I could sleep forever here."
"Dojo? Dojo!"
"What is it?" Dojo murmured.
"Dude, it's me!"
Dojo opened his eyes and saw Raimundo standing above him. "Wa?"
"We were most worried!" Omi said. The little monk stepped into view, followed closely by Kimiko and Clay. "We found you out here on the grass, after the Lunarcanum and the Terrarcanum exploded. We had feared the worst, but thankfully, you are all right!"
Dojo blinked. "The... the Shen Gong Wu exploded?"
"Yeah." Kimiko said. "We saw the whole thing. Raimundo came back to get us, and when we returned, we saw the Shen Gong Wu go off like a rocket. It was crazy!"
"Scariest thing I ever did see." Clay added. "That varmint Hannibal Bean ran off just before, and no one's saw where Spicer or Chase Young got to."
"What about Master Fung?" Dojo asked.
"He and the other Elder Monks are staying at the Temple of Master Monk Guan." Omi said. "Our own Temple was... was destroyed by Chase Young. It will take many seasons before it can be rebuilt."
"We're going over there just now," Kimiko said. "Silver Manta Ray!" She dropped the silvery Shen Gong Wu onto the ground and stepped away as it transformed into a giant ship capable of seating the four of them.
Dojo sighed and tried to move. He slumped over, still completely drained. "Uh... someone's going to have to carry me over."
"Much obliged, pardner." Clay said, scooping him up. You really saved us from a major disaster back there."
"Yeah, I suppose I did!" Dojo said, smiling. "Well, what do you know? The old dragon's still got a few moves. While we're heading, I'll tell you how it all went down with those spooky baddies. It all started when I looked up in the sky and saw Uranus..."
As the monks sped off towards the temple of Master Guan, Hannibal Roy Bean was settling in his new lair. It was a small cave, carved from a chunk of the Ring of Fire Island. Within it, Heylin magic was strong, and he could work feats that would not have been possible elsewhere.
The tiny vegetable set a small cauldron filled with water in the middle of the cave and held his tendrils above them. The water frothed and churned underneath his gaze before finally settling into inky blackness. A pair of bright purple eyes appeared amid the gloom.
"Yeah?" Bean murmured.
'Are you ready for us now?' Queen Echidna asked.
"Not quite yet," Bean admitted. "I need more power if I'm going to be able to bring you into this world to do what you do best. At your command, I can bring Chase Young's skeleton army to my side."
Echidna let out a long, rattling breath. 'As you desire...' She said finally, and her eyes vanished from the cauldron's dark waters.
Hannibal Bean rubbed his tendrils together and chuckled with cruel mirth. "Soon, this world and everyone in it will be getting a surprise that they won't soon forget!"
The end, right? Well, not really. I've thought a while about this, and I've decided to continue it. But instead of adding more chapters, I wanted to continue this same plotline with a different story. The way I have it set up so far, this story will have a sequel that I hope to start either today or tomorrow at the earliest. But first, I want to thank each and everyone who reviewed this story and all my others, and stuck with this one to the end. I especially have to thank sugarmakesmeangry again for the idea of using Tiamat and Echidna as the villains in the climax. As you might already suspect, they'll be making more appearances in the sequel. See you then!